Training Day

For the first time in weeks, Dorien wasn't tired. With his father out of the hospital, he'd gotten home at a reasonable hour from his parent's house and had managed to be asleep by eleven, which meant that  the next morning he was awake, dressed, and even shaved. His sleep had even been steady and restful, free from the strange dreams of the day before. He checked the icebox and found some leftover spinach turnovers for breakfast, and he had just taken a bite of one when there was a knock on the door.

Dorien glanced at the apartment's lone clock as he opened the door, not bothering to check the peephole. In his experience, no one who meant trouble ever visited before noon.

"You're early." He said to the Shadr Kai girl... woman... whatever... that stood on the doorstep, "Good job."

Misery shrugged, stepping inside. "You said nine," she said, as if it was a matter of complete indifference to her what time she showed up. "I brought a couple gev'rak, wasn't sure if you'd have eaten or not." The paper bag she was holding smelled of some kind of warm, doughy, salty goodness, and she handed it to him to hold as she removed her coat.

"I assumed you'd have a pot and hot water to make tea - but I wasn't sure what kind you might have, so I brought some leaves too," she added. Her tone indicated that she didn't really trust him to have whatever she considered the appropriate variety or quality of tea.

"I'm uhhh... I'm more of a coffee person, really," Dorien said as the girl brushed past him into the apartment, "But I know I have a kettle somewhere."

Dorien closed the door and headed to the kitchen, searching his cabinets for the kettle.

"I hope your Gev'rak are as good as Aubrienne's. I uhh... I haven't been home much lately, but I can offer you some spinach turnovers. And I always have good coffee on hand."

"Oh I didn't make them - there's a vendor who has a stall just outside the old wall, on Tower Street." She eyed the spinach turnover a bit dubiously, along with the rest of Dorien's kitchen. "I'll be fine with the gev'rak, thanks."

As he located the kettle for her tea, she retrieved the bundle of herbs from the satchel she carried over her shoulder. "Should I make enough just for me? Or for you and your... friend?" She wasn't sure if the other person living here was a lover, a roommate, or a family member, but she felt sure that Dorien wasn't alone - not with this amount of junk. Besides, there was a closed door she'd seen last time she was here that most likely led to someone else's bedroom.

"Huh?" Dorien said, eloquently, "Oh, Argent. Nah, he's still asleep. If he manages to get his ass up before noonish I'll introduce you. Throw some extra water in for me, though. I'll use it for my coffee."

As Misery got set up in the kitchen, Dorien sat back down on the couch and opened the bag, taking out one of the salt-covered rolls, still warm from the vendor cart.

"Thanks for the Gev'rak. That was very... thoughtful of you."

"You looked hungry," she said with a shrug, setting the water to boil. "I don't want lessons from a hungry, cranky teacher."

Argent emerged from his bedroom, bare foot, in loose pants and a white tank top, yawning and rubbing a hand through his hair. Undaunted by the sound of a stranger, he padded into the common room.

"What's with the noise? You know I work late" he half mutter, still yet to be fully awake. "Those look tasty," he added, eyeing the roll in Dorien's hand.

Dorien took a big bite of the salted bread, grinning at his roommate.

"They are," he said, mouth full, " But you'll have to ask our guest if you can have any."

He gestured at Misery.

"Argent, this is Misery. She's here to learn from the master. You can call her Dorien Junior. Misery, this is Argent, also known as Guy-I-Sometimes-Owe-Money-To. Though I suggest not calling him that to his face because all it does is remind him."

"Oh hi!" Argent turned to look at their house guest. "Don't worry, I'd never call anyone Dorien Junior... unless... you know... they were a guy... and actually Dorien's kid... or something like that. Yeah, never calling anyone that."

"So Misery was it?"

"Yeah, well, that's close enough in Aveyronnais," she said with a shrug. "If you want some of the gev'rak you'll have to split with him, I only brought two. But hey, if he owes you money, maybe he can work off some of his debt that way. They are pretty good," she said, taking a bite of her own pastry.

Dorien smirked and tore off a half of the Gev'rak, tossing it to Argent.

"There's a turnover left, too, if you want it. Sorry for waking you. We'll try to be more quiet. What time do you go in today?"

Argent catches the hunk of pastry and nods a thanks. "Same time as usual... evenings are my thing these days."

"Not planning on explosions are you?" he asks between taking bits of the Gev'rak. He looks accusingly at both Dorien and Misery, "Or loud bangs? Cause if that's the case, I'll just go for a walk for a little while."

"Well, I wasn't planning on any bangs, loud or quiet," Misery said dryly.  She added the dried leaves to her tea, shooting them both a deadpan look that suggested that she both recognized the innuendo in that particular phrasing, and would put her foot down if it passed beyond harmless words.

"I, ummm... Hadn't planned on any either," Dorien added, somewhat awkwardly, "Explosions are next week. You should be safe to go back to sleep if you want. Today I'll mostly be showing her how to work the titration rod...."

Dorien paused wide eyed as his brain caught up to his mouth. He glanced at Misery and decided it was best to press on before anyone said anything.

"...and maybe the carbon filter set up. Nothing noisy."

Argent glanced at the two of them, a confused look on his face. "Why is everybody so tense? I just wanted you to keep it down..."

A flush came over his face.

"I'm just gonna grab my jacket and go for a walk." He hurried to snatch it up where it was laying on a chair, headed out the outside door.

"Shoes!" He exclaimed as he was just about through the door. Snatching those he didn't even wait to put them on before he closed the door behind him.

Dorien chuckled as Argent closed the door behind himself.

"He's a bit excitable sometimes, but he's really a good guy. Sorry about all that."

He offered her a tilted grin in the hopes of showing her that neither of them had meant anything out of line.

Misery shrugged. "I just hope he's not too cold, wandering around in his pyjamas."

Taking her tea between both hands, she sipped it tentatively. "So, what are we working on today?"

Dorien got up and headed to the kitchen to make his own cofee with the rest of the hot water.

"Like I said, titration, filtering. More basics. Maybe after that we'll start on some actual formulas. Have you ever actually made any of this stuff before? The basics, I mean. Vodare, Cherry Nectar... anything like that?"

"Not ... exactly," she said, looking at him out of the corner of her eyes. "Mostly things like tanglefoot bags, smokesticks, invisible ink, and ordinary stuff like incense and ointments and cosmetics."

Dorien nodded as he pushed down on the plunger of his coffee press. That wasn't a bad background. He imagined she had probably apprenticed somewhere briefly. that gave her the foundational knowledge to start with, but there was more to the job than just knowledge.

"If you want to be good at this job - and you should want to; being good is what keeps you alive and paid - then you'll need to learn to let go of terms like 'ordinary' and 'extraordinary'. In this world there's only simple and complex. The same chemicals and energies that make up you and me also make up this apartment and magical artifacts and stars and every one of the drugs we're going to make. The only difference is complexity."

He looked down at the coffee he'd just brewed and gestured for Misery to look as well.

"Take this coffee, for example. It's a pretty simple solution at first glance. Just water and ground coffee beans. And if you heated it up you could capture the steam and condense it back into water. You can do that because water is simple. But you'd never be able to turn the leftover sludge back into a coffee bean. Not because it's impossible, but because it's too complex for us to do with our current knowledge and technology. But it's still the same substance, just in a less complex form. Does that make sense?"

"Yeah," she said. "But someone could probably do it with magic, so what's the point of alchemy?" She gave him a wry look that suggested she wasn't totally serious, more curious what he would say.

Dorien returned her grin as he poured his coffee.

"As my old Master would say, you're asking the wrong question. Remember what I said about ordinary and extraordinary? Alchemy and magic are the same thing. They both deal with changing the form of matter and energy. They just do it in different ways. But studying one can inform our ideas about the other, and each has advantages and disadvantages. Sure you can create a coffee bean from air or from sludge with a transmutation spell, but that's a brute force solution, imposing your will on the universe with a huge amount of focused energy, and it leaves traces. That bean will radiate magic and if someone looks hard enough they can trace it back to you. In our line of work, that's a huge drawback. Besides..."

Dorien shrugged and took a sip of his coffee.

"...chemicals are just fucking cooler."